here we are in istanbul with steve, zeynep and their majorly cute little girl, asya, who is currently playing with mark. the one and same mark who not long ago took a wee tumble down the stairs and is now nursing a couple of swollen toesies - nothing major, so don't worry. they have been sufficiently iced and prodded, and we think he's just slammed them good. so that was our bit of excitement for the morning.
we arrived yesterday (friday) afternoon around 3.45 turkish time (this blog is still set to australian time). steve picked us up from the airport, and we had some dinner and drinks and caught up (the last time we saw steve was when he was in australia ten years ago, though this is our first meeting with zeynep and asya). we stayed up till 11pm which was a pretty good effort i thought, seeing as we'd been up and about for ages... there's a 7 hour time difference between toronto and turkey, and we had a half-hour delay in heathrow on the way. the weather here is quite a contrast to toronto, where it was clear and cool - here the weather is quite pleasant, high teens and lovely. today we're having a chillout day so mark can rest his toes, then tomorrow we'll have a look around. we're thinking of going into the city for a couple of days during the week, then we're all going to gallipoli next weekend.
on our second-last day in toronto, we did a segway tour of a historical area of the city called 'the distillery district'. mark had always wanted to try one out, and i'd also been a bit curious - they teach you how to ride it first then the tour itself goes for 90 minutes. i found it weird to start out with - the controls are intuitive, you have to lean forward to make it go, and backward to stop or reverse - and it feels a little wrong and wobbly. but mark took to it like a roast duck to hoi-sin sauce - he was zooming around like crazy. it was fun, though i kept forgetting to keep my legs loose and my knees bent - the more rigidly you stand the less balanced you end up being, so i had stiff leg muscles for a bit afterwards. the distillery district used to be (funnily enough) a whiskey distillery back in the 1800's, and now the whole area is classified national trust, and is an arty district. there are many beautiful galleries there, and we saw some amazing works in glass. half of one gallery was works by australian artists - unfortunately we couldn't take pictures. the glasswork was amazing in their scale and intricacies - i wondered how they transported it from australia without losing half of it. there were also a couple of large-scale nail and cotton works, of profiles. from a distance they looked like lead drawings on huge white canvasses, but close up it becomes apparent that it's actually black thread wrappedround hundreds of nails. amazing stuff.
we caught a street-car back to he station then a bus home, where alll the family came over for dinner. i cooked a curry and mark made a raita, and it was an excellent evening. more pictures coming soon!
also in toronto i made a little purchase for myself - the first season of beveley hills, 90210 on dvd. finally! do you think aaron's passing had anything to do with that? makes one wonder, does it not? hmmm.
and damien won idol, huh. well done him. would have been a great final to watch. i'll have to borrow the dvd when i come back!
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s?nce i wrote the above post, a day has passed - blogger was freaking out a bit. we woke up rather late today (again, ? know!) and tg?s afternoon headed into buykgekmege, a l?ttl bus-ride from steve & zeynep's place. we checked out some shops, took a walk by the sea-s?de and drank some turkish tea. tomorrow i have decided to follow steve around at h?s work - he's a pr?mary school teacher - and then on wednesday, mark and i will be head?ng into istanbul for a couple of n?ghts. we go to gallipoli on friday - zeynep actually grew up there, so we're go?ng to get to meet her parents. we've been toss?ng around some ?deas for our next destination after turkey, but nothing's set in stone yet. i'll keep you updated.
oh, by the way mark's toes are okay, though they turned black last n?ght, and now they've calmed down to a lovely shade of purple. he's walk?ng alr?ght, but m?ght have a rest-day tomorrow. pictures of zombie toes will be up on the web soon.

callout: europe

anyone out there in europe who feels the need... to do a good deed?
how does letting two nice aussie travellers crash on your couch sound?
too much? how about just catching up for a coffee and a chat about your lovely city?
drop us an email (shalini dot akhil at gmail dot com) if you're amenable to that discussion!

going to the zoo, zoo, zoo..

hello there lovelies. today we are going to toronto zoo and checking out the animals. we have so far been exploring the city and have seen the museum, and been to the top of the CN tower. they have a glass floor bit you can stand on, it's a bit of a spin-out seeing the ground and everything so far below! pictures will be posted soon.
we went out on saturday nigth and saw some music - two bands, one called ohbijou and another called the dears. they were both very different - ohbijou was a lot like architechture in helsinki, big band with a huge selection of instruments and a sweet-voiced lead singer - and the dears were loud and heavy with lots of guitar solos and spectacular lightshow. i dodn;t realise it at the time, but i've heard one of their songs called 'lost in the plot' played on triple j a bit, so that was a bit of a bonus. the venue was like a slimmed-down version on the hifi bar, which suited us down to the ground.
anyway, must away - the husband is getting restless. thanks for all your comments and sms's - keep it up and keep us posted!
xo
us

hello again! we've been in a little bit of a wireless dearth lately, hence the lull in updating. however we discovered a connection we can jump on in one corner of the house, so here i am!
we are now in toronto, staying with mark's rellies here. we're with anty joyce in a condo on the twentieth floor with amazing views of the city - mark is having a swim in the pool downstairs as i type this. it's indoors and heated, as the weather is markedly different from new york - cold, though not unbearable. today we're having a quiet one at home, though we will be heading out to see some comedy tonight. actually, speaking of comedy, we saw some stand-up in nyc too - wandered in to caroline's in times square and happened to catch the fianls of the andy awards - like raw comedy, except in the spirit of andy kaufmann's style - so, no cussing, no disrespectin', clean comedy. it was fun - andy's brother, sister and dad also made appearances.
anyhoo, canada - so far we've seen the niagara falls, which was just amazing, even without the maid of the mist boat ride. most of the touristy things were closed, but that didn't bother us - the off-season thing also meant that there were minimal crowds. after the falls we wandered around in a little township called niagara one the lake, which was quaint and villagey in an olinda kind of way, but colder! we took lots of photos, but at the moment we're not having too much luck uploading them. yesterday we visited the mcmichael canadian art collection, in kleineberg, which houses a lot of amazing inuit and indian art, together with works by a group of canadian artists who call thmeselves the 'group of seven'. also really interesting were the largem, bright works by native indian artist norvel morrisseau. great artwork, and a really lovely gallery.
now, prompted my loren's message on the last post, i will deliver some updates on the sex & the city tour. we started out at the pulitzer fountain (the one used in 'friends', apparently) across the road from the plaza hotel - the very place where mr. big and carrie run into each other after his engagement to natasha, the stick insect with no soul. anyway, it was raining so hard that my umbrella got blown inside out a couple of times, and my jeans were soaked to the knee even before we got on the bus. anyhoo, mark left me there and went to see 'the bodies' exhibit at south wharf. there were a few of us on the tour and the guide was perky, albeit full of bad 'sex' puns. i set my expectation-meter to low, and off we went.
the series was filmed all over new york, so there was pretty much non-stop commentary the whole way through. we saw the exteriors of samantha and carrie's apartments - samanthat's red door in the meat packing district is actually just a 2 storey place that is definitely not apartments. like carrie's stoop, it is only used for outdoor shots. a lot of the paris scenes were shot in the same neighbourhood as carrie's stoop. we each got given a cupcale from the magnolia bakery, and we got to wander in the sex shop where the girls buy their 'rabbits'. oh,m and remember that story about me squeezing the guts out of the frog in that 'sharper image' store? turns out that was the one where samantha returned her 'massager' because it 'failed to get her off'. hehe! we saw the place that was used as aidan's furniture shop, the park with the markets where carries confronts nina katz (the face girl), and the park where elizabeth taylor gets a lot of attention (she was charlotte's dog, remember?). we saw the gallery that was the one charlotte worked in, the gym where miranda meets the guy whose kid likes to press the lift buttons, and the store where charlotte and trey (and bunny) buy their bed. i didn;t take too many piucs cause it was pouring rain unfortunately. but there are a few tidbits of behind-the-scenes info stuck in my memory, though -
- sarah jessica parker and the actor that plays her gay best friend, stanford, have been friends for ages, having met on the child-actor circuit. they made a promise back then that if one of them hit the big time, they'd take the other with them... and also, the guy that plays stanford is actually straight.
- initially, samantha was going to be younger than everyone else, but it didn't work on test audiences.
- both kim cattrall and kristin davis auditioned for the role of carrie.
- remember the ep. where mr big buys carrie that ugly duck-shpaed handbag? well, apparently the pr person for the label that designed the bag lost their job after that episode aired, beacuse the girls spend the whole ep making fun of the bag. no-one would let their product appear on the show after that, for fear that their brand would be made fun of.
- the ep. where carrie goes on a date with new york, and goes to the paris cinema to see 'joy for two' (for one!) - sjp she actually found out she was pregnant just before they filmed that scene.
- the scene where carrie runs into aidan on the street, and aidan turns around and has a baby strapped to his front? that baby is sjp's actual son, hence his total change in demeanour when aidan turns around to face carrie. (i guessed this when i saw that scene at home, watch it again if you can, it's very cute).
ok, that's enough of that - i could go on but i just realised maybe i'm a little obsessed.
we have access to a great connection now - i wrote the forst part of this blog at aunty joyce's, but we're at uncle paul's house as i type - so photos from nyc have been uploaded. will get onto the canada ones soon.

Bagels, yum...

New York City, what a town! We saw so much, but always felt we were only scratching the surface. My highlights: The off-Broadway show 'Drumstruck,' the Annual Andy Kaufman awards at Carolines, and 'Bodies - The Exhibition' which is a display of dissected cadavers and information about how you work: Really interesting, beautiful in places, touching in places, I highly recommend it.

New York sounds like sirens, is the colour of money-green, tastes of a martini, feels like the vibration of a subway through your soles, and smells like the steam rising from manholes. Don't forget to check the photos!

Now that we have hit Toronto, the differences hit you like a spring shower. There is a tension you feel in NYC that develops from a mixture of the sirens, the crowds, the traffic, the high-rises, and you don't notice the tension until these things - and the tension - are removed. For example, I've heard one siren in Toronto in three days, compared with one an hour in NYC.

who said it was going to be cold in new york? apart from one day of torrential rain, we have been blessed with beautiful weather on our trip here. conducive to lots of walking, which is excellent - though i wouldn't go as far as to say i'll come back from this trip any thinner... oh well. today, our final new york day, we spent most of it in the museum of natural history. what a great museum - lots of very interesting things to see. we then went back to times square to take in a final show - and what a show it was! caled drumstruck, it was a show with audience participation - there was a djembe on every seat. i know, trust us hippies to find the one show with drumming in it... actually i had read about it online before we left melbourne, but i didn't realise that it would still be running. great show, drummed like crazy, and had a ball. then we went to madame tussad's wax museum and marvelled at just how short shakira is in real life, and how tall elle macpherson is. they even had the spice girls (minus ginger, unfortunately - but not to worry, i stood in for her and the other girls didn;t seem to mind at all).
friday we wandered through central park for most of the day - mark got hit on the head by an acorn - it made a distinctive popping sound on contact. after he got over the initial shock, we both couldn't stop laughing, imagining a chubby-cheeked squirrel punching the air and going 'yesss!' while high-fiving his other squirrel-buddies... i still think they're cute, though. then we saw a turtle sunning itself on a rock, watched as a group of boys trying to terrorise it, then cheered quietly as it scratched one of them before plonking back into the water. we rode the carousel to the tune of 'down town' - all very meg-ryanesque, really. speaking of tom hanks, we then wandered into f.a.o. schwartz, the toy store with the piano from the movie 'big'. in the queue for the ladies, i saw something very disturbing - two tween girls with mini designer handbags - one pink prada and one brown chanel.
on friday night we went to dinner at a friend's house - we actually met them at the melbourne writers festival last year. ron mclarty and his wife kate threw a little party for us, and kept introducing us as 'the guests of honour' - one could get used to such treatment! it was fab to meet so many new and interesting people, and to know the heels i brought along got at least one good run out of the bag. we chatted and laughed into the wee hours, and came back to the hostel feeling very special indeed. thank you ron and kate for a very lovely evening!
other celebrity sightings-in-the-wild - i think i saw john mcenroe the other night, and mark saw danny from the partridge family earlier this evening.

once more for the cheap seats in the back!

hello again! end of another day out & about in nyc, thought i'd check in again before turning in for the night. today, even though it was threatening rain all day, we checked out central park. i wanted to go on a horse-drawn carriage ride but we found a better alternative - rickshaw! our driver, peter, was really cool and chatty, and as it turned out the rickshaw ride was longer and more intimate than the carriage-ride anyway. there was a lot of horse-poop around though, so if we closed our eyes and inhaled, it was almost as if we were on a horse-drawn carriage... aaaaanyway. that's my horse joke of the day. we saw squirrels galore - they are so cute, their long bushy tails move independantly from the rest of their bodies, always extended elegantly behind them and undulating like plumage in the cap of an eighteenth-century heiress at a masquerade ball. the park itself was gorgeous, all the trees were shades of red and orange and yellow. yes, pictures will be updated soon.
after central park we walked around a bit, checking out all the rich-people shops, then decided to browse at 'the sharper image'. i saw this squeezy frog thing. the packaging said it 'bulged when squeezed', so i squeezed it. and it bulged... and bulged... before bursting and sending its gooey innards all over my jacket and the floor. i called over an attendant and told him, he was trying to hide his amusement as he apologised, but lost control when i said the frog had 'lost its guts'. we exited there pretty quick after that little incident...
we saw a broadway play this evening, got 2 for one tickets - woohoo! it was called 'butley' and starred nathan lane, who has also starred in movies like the birdcage and the producers, and he also guested on sex and the city. it was a good show, though i think mark had a hard time staying awake in the first half. he soldiered on, though, and the play got a lot better in the second half. it was a bit of a thrill to see someone from the movies live on stage, even though we were seated in the cheap seats up the back.
parting thought - after last week's sad news of the reese witherspoon/ryan phillpe split, it has come to pass that britney spears has filed for divorce from kevin federline (who my favourite online gossip queen now refers to as 'fed-ex'). all is well with the world once again - the balance has been brought back.
i know, i know - it's a weight off my shoulders too.

i heart new york

ah, what an eloquent husband i have - viva bloody las vegas indeed. we had a ball at the gambling capital of the world, just don't ask me how much we won. it's riggged, i tells ya. we was robbed... not literally though, so don't worry.
las vegas was beautiful in the same way cookie doough commotion ice cream is beautiful - a heaped serving now and again is excellent, but you wouldn't want too much of it. highlights for me were the fountains at the bellagio (two mentions, i know - but they *were* that good), and the inside of the venetian - i want a ceiling like that in my bedroom! we also squeezed in a show - the blue man group. now, if you're reading this and thinking 'those blue guys are weirdos', let me tell you - they are, but in the best possible way. the show was an audio-visual extravaganza - we had the best time, i was a little hoarse from screaming my approval. we took my aunty and cousin along with us, and i was worried they would not like it, but we all had a ball. i don't want to say too much , but if you get a chance, go see them - you won't regret it.
now we're in new york. we got here on monday night and immediately found ourselves a nice little restaurant with live jazz music. today we got up and out at the nice hour of 11 (we are on holiday after all!) and bought a met pass and went exploring. on advice from our local connection, a friend i used to work with named michael, we caught the (free!) staten island ferry to... well, staten island, and back again. got a great view of manhattan and lady liberty. then we went to the smithsonian museum of indian cultural history (free!) and saw some exhibitions. afterward we wandered around the financial district and then to the world trade centre site. i wasn;t expecting to be as emtionally affected as i was - got a little teary. onward from there we went to times square. oh. my. lordy. bumped into many an annoyed new yorker as i stumbled around with my mouth open, looking at all the bright lights. then mark and i had a hot dog from a street vendor (not free, but cheap!) and wandered around some more. lots of pics coming soon! we then had dinner with mikey in eastr village somewhere, and caught up more after over a beer. we like this place. many dogs though - lots of people walking dogs too big to live in apartment blocks. interesting. no pictures of the dogs yet, but give us some time... we did get a good shot of steam rising from a grating in the ground. it actually happens!
oh, and on our first wander away from the hostel, we had our first celebrity-in-the-wild sighting - we caught the host from america's biggest loser buying chocolate and ice-cream from a supermarket! armloads, i tell you...! nah, obviously i jest, she was just picking up some booze. not really. she was probably buying fruit. anyway, it was her, and i can say this for sure because she confirmed our suspicions when she loudly referred to her own show in conversation with the shopkeeper. classy.
anyway, will write more later. have booked myself in for a sex and the city tour of new york for wednesday morning (i let mark off the hook, so he'll wander while i'm posing on carrie's apartment stoop). needless to say, more pics soon.
hope you backed a winner!

Viva bloody Las Vegas mate

Yesterday we got ourselves down to The Strip, and had our own Las Vegas adventure. Disclaimer: contents may not be that adventurous.

We saw The Mandalay (sounds like water), The Luxor (sounds like jackhammers), The Flamingo (sounds like Elvis) and The Bellagio (sounds like class.) We saw giant aquariums, a giant Coke bottle, a giant Harley Davidson, giant pirates and plenty of giant billboards.

We drove through the wedding chapel district, would like to visit again, with romance in mind, before we leave.

Then we caught the Freemont Experience (giant ceiling screen, impossible to describe) which was fun, especially as it was Halloween night.

Shalini's Uncle Paula and Aunty Mall are spoiling us with too much food, too many gifts, and one time, the shoes off his feet.

To give you a better feeling for Vegas I'm going to borrow from a simple writing exercise here: Las Vegas smells like pancakes, tastes like margaritas, feels like casino chips, and is the colour of neon.

Today we are heading out to Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon: things are just getting bigger and bigger, I'm considering eye-ball enhancement surgery.